Not So Grimm
by stoner-blake
Summary: In a universe where there are no Grimm monsters, how much would change? Especially in one where some of the characters are older than they should be.
1. Chapter 1

**So, a couple of things. The Weiss Schnee in this fic is older, and based of the future RWBY au by funblade (on tumblr, go look them up and see what they've come up with, it's brilliant.), there are no Grimm monsters, and thus no Beacon academy for huntsmen and huntresses, and in turn that's not a title or job in this world. Everyone still has their weapons, but those who had been or would be hunters are now melded into either the police or army. The story starts off like the canon, but there's pretty quickly twists and turns thanks to the changes and my own ideas. Hopefully I'll continue this later, still need to work out a few small plot lines for it. Anyways, enjoy.**

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><p>The young girl sat nervously by herself in the brightly lit police room, waiting for someone else to show up. She had been in here for almost half an hour by now, and the tension of the wait was getting to her, making the belief that she was going to be punished severely for her actions seem all the more likely. Her hands were gripping the underside of her chair nervously, grey eyes repeatedly glancing towards the locked door to the room.<p>

Maybe it hadn't been the best idea to have interfered with a robbery taking place, but it was kind of hard not to do anything when she had been in the shop when the thieves had shown up, and one of them attempted to mug her. Sure, she had managed to scare off the group lead by a redhead in a bowler hat who looked to be out of that Clockwork Orange film, but the police that had shown up almost immediately after hadn't been exactly happy to see that a young teenage girl in a dress had managed to do their job for them. After that, she had been quickly escorted to the police station despite her protests, and left here while they decided what to do with her.

Her grip on the chair tightened. Yang and uncle Qrow would be wondering where she was by now. She was supposed to have come home from the shop a long time ago. Even if she wound up just getting let go by the police, there would be a lot of questions to answer once she got home.

The door slammed open suddenly, making Ruby jump in her seat as a woman stormed into the room, an open folder held before her.

"Do you have _any_ idea," Came a prim tone from the woman, now standing on the opposite side of the table the teenager was sitting at, icy blue eyes now set on her. "Just what could have happened to you, interrupting a crime like that?"

The girl froze in her seat, unsure of how to answer even as her mind scrambled for words. As she did so, she got a good look at the woman who had strode in full of cold fury. Long white hair, tied off as a ponytail to one side of her head. A scar that ran down through her left eye, another one just underneath running perpendicular through it. A clean and pressed white dress shirt, the arms rolled up to the elbows, a red tie and tan suspenders on top of it. The suspenders ran down to white suit pants, and to finish off the outfit was a pair of tall leather boots. Although the woman looked to be more than a few years older than Ruby, with a closer look, it appeared she actually wasn't all that taller than the short teenager was.

"Answer the question!" The woman slapped the folder down onto the table, earning another jump and an extra yelp this time from the teenager. "Do you have any clue what they could have done to you?"

"They started it!" The childish answer was out of her mouth before she could think, hardly seeing what she had done wrong by stopping the poor old shopkeeper from being robbed. The woman's eyes narrowed in response, making Ruby feel like she was shrinking underneath that gaze.

"_They_ were armed robbers, that have been recently hitting a string of Dust shops across the city." She turned a page that was in the folder, now laid across the table. "And _you_, are a fifteen year old child, Ruby Rose, with no formal police or military training whatsoever, neither the authority to intervene in such a case."

"Wait, how do you know my name?" Although, as soon as the question was out of her mouth, she had a sinking feeling just why that was.

"Actually, the department had made a file on an unknown vigilante who's been busily sticking her nose into where it doesn't belong in the last few months." Another page was flicked over. "It wasn't until now, when we had to use the cell phone we confiscated from you to contact your family, that we got a name to go along with it." A groan met the news that her family knew she was being held at the police station. She just knew that Yang would never let her hear the end of this.

"Seeing as I already know your name, it would be bad manners for me not to introduce myself. I am detective Weiss Schnee, and I have the dubious honour of deciding just what to do with you." Unfortunately, being assigned to the case of the Dust shop robberies had also meant that she had to deal with all those who got involved in it, regardless of whether they were witnesses, victims, or stupid teenagers trying to play hero.

"Um..." Ruby was almost squirming in her seat, shyly looking up with a nervous smile. "Hopefully that will be just letting me go home?"

"Hmph." The teenager's spirits sank at the sound, knowing that was not likely. "I haven't decided yet. You're lucky that you're still considered underage, otherwise you would probably have been charged and left in a cell for the night, at the very least." Weiss tapped one of her boots against the floor, arms crossed in front of her chest as she thought in silence for a moment. "Right now, it all depends on how much you co-operate." Like it or not, the girl still had some value as a witness to the crime. Grey eyes, with a mixture of anxiousness and a sliver of hope in them, rose again to meet the detective's gaze as Weiss pulled back the chair on the opposite side to sit down.

"Really?" Ruby asked excitedly, although another narrowing of the other's eyes made her falter, becoming more sheepish. "Well, uh, what exactly do I have to do then?"

"You can start with a description of the robbers, and then the series of events that took place." Weiss explained, picking up a pen that the teenager hadn't noticed until now, and putting it to paper.

"W-well..."

Although she stumbled over her words a few times out of nervousness, Ruby managed to get through her story pretty well, giving a description of the robbers that the detective recognised as Roman Torchwick, an already known leader of the attacks that had been happening, and a small group of thugs that normally came with him on such occasions. The pen scribbled furiously, but elegantly, across the paper, keeping up with the tale as it unfolded from the teen's mouth, Weiss glancing up every so often to ask a question on some detail or other, making sure she didn't leave anything in her report that might come up later unknown. The girl was more than happy to answer them all, now so wrapped up in reliving the scene that had happened just a little over an hour or so ago that all her nervousness had been shed.

"...And then, after I had caught up to him on the rooftop, an airship appeared." Ruby was getting so caught up in the story now, that she was making energetic hand gestures to go along with it, barely seeming to care that she was in police custody. "He jumped in, threw a Dust crystal back to the roof, and went to use his cane to shoot it!" The girl's hands, which had been drawn towards her centre as fists, flared their fingers and moved apart out to mimic an explosion.

"I could have gone sailing off the roof from it, had that lady officer not appeared out of nowhere." Ah, Glynda, the first officer that had arrived on the scene, Weiss realised. And also the one who had dragged the girl in afterwards, she had heard, chiding Ruby all the while quite loudly, according to the others.

"After that, this woman in the airship took over from the guy, and started to fight with the officer." Wait, that was new. Weiss paused in her writing. She hadn't heard anything before about Roman working with a woman. Especially not one that had managed to fight off Glynda, a veteran detective and fighter in her own right, long enough for the pair to make their escape.

"Tell me more about the woman." She asked swiftly, cutting off Ruby's words and furious hand movements that she had been using to describe the fight that had gone on before she could get wrapped up again in the tale.

"Well, I didn't actually get a good look at her." The girl meekly replied, a little apprehensive that she couldn't full answer the woman's question this time. "There was a lot of shadows in the aircraft, so I couldn't see her face." Weiss made a 'tsk' sound in annoyance. Dammit, that was going to make it a lot harder to figure out who this mystery partner Roman had was. But at least now they knew about her, and she could always see if Glynda's report might hold some more information for her to glean. And here she was thinking that this interview would just end up a waste of her time.

A knock came at the door, causing the both of them to look up, Ruby in curiosity, and Weiss in confusion. It opened slightly, a younger officer leaning in to poke his head round the side of it.

"Ma'am, the girl's family is here to pick her up." The detective pursed her lips. While she had said that she would be the one to decide on whether the girl would go scot-free or not, that had basically been a lie to help scare her into co-operating fully. Now that her family was here though, and she had been told by her superiors to let her go with a warning, there was not much she could do. She sighed. It wasn't like she hadn't gotten what she needed out of her now, so there was not much reason to keep her longer anyways.

"I'll send her out soon, you can tell them that." With a curt nod, the office ducked back out, closing the door after him. The woman picked up her papers, tapping them against the metal surface of the table to better align them, before laying them neatly back into the manila folder.

"I suppose that marks the end of this meeting. You're off the hook this time." Although she wasn't looking directly at the girl, Weiss could see her eyes widening happily at the remark. "But," The smile that had been forming dropped off at this point. "If I, or another officer, catches you again, trying to take on criminals that you should leave to the authorities, I will personally see to it that you spend some time in a cell, minor or not. I don't care how skilled you are with that weapon of yours," She continued, talking about the combination rifle and scythe that they had taken off the girl, and that she would get back soon. "You should leave these things to us."

"But what else was I supposed to do?" Ruby exclaimed, growing slightly angry with how she was being treated for stopping a crime. "I was there, and you weren't! And by the time you could have gotten there, they could have been long gone! Because of me, they didn't get anything!"

"That may be true." The detective was forced to concede, rising up from her chair to lean forward with both hands on the table separating them. "But you acted recklessly, endangering yourself, and potentially anyone else that could have been there. It may have gone well this time, but if anything else had been different, such as Glynda not showing up in time, you could have _died_." She punctuated the word with a slam of a fist onto the table.

"You may seem to have some kind of desire to be the hero, but you need to remember, you are a _child_! Not an officer trained to take care of these kinds of criminals, but a _child_." Her tone was almost mocking as she repeated the term, watching with a firm gaze as Ruby sunk back down in her seat. Realising that if she continued, she might end up taking this a bit too far, Weiss decided to end this now, straightening herself back up and adjusting her tie before she walked over to the door to open it. Catching the gaze of the girl again, she gave a one handed gesture towards the open doorway.

"Go home, Ruby." She ordered, knowing that the hallway outside would lead directly to where her family would be waiting for her. "Go home, go to school or whatever else it is you do, and try to stay out of trouble from now on." Weiss finished almost in an exasperated tone.

Silent and feeling ashamed, Ruby slinked on out the door and down the hall. The motion reminded the detective of a chastised puppy, the way she moved. It almost made her feel bad about reprimanding the girl, though she knew that it had to be done. Better to shut her down from attempting it ever again than to one day find her a dead body lying in the streets, a victim of her own impetuousness.

Walking out of the interview room herself about a minute after, the white haired woman glanced down the hall just in time to see the smaller dark haired teen get crushed by a ferocious hug from a tall blonde. A sister? Maybe, although it was hard to see the resemblance between them if that was the case.

"Detective," She looked down the other side of the hallway, the younger officer still there. "They're waiting for your report now." Already? They were certainly impatient today. Then again, the robberies were starting to pick up more in occurrences and the level of violence used. It made perfect sense that they would be wanting to make some kind of breakthrough already, before whatever the reason they were taking so much Dust from shops could be done, given the increasing potential for mass destruction that each theft brought.

"Very well, I'll be along shortly. You are dismissed, officer." A short salute, and he was hurriedly jogging down the hall and back to his regular duties.

About to go herself, Weiss spared another glance back down towards where Ruby was still struggling to get out of the bear hug, before striding along down the opposite way, preparing mentally for the meeting with her superiors.

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><p><strong>Hope you like the chapter! If you did, please consider leaving a review.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

There was nothing like waiting for the coffee machine to work its magic in the staff room that allowed one to muse over recent events. Or so Weiss believed as she drummed her fingers along the counter top, staring at the metal machine as it whirred and buzzed away inside, waiting for it to start spitting the brown caffeinated liquid that most of the department seemed to run on into the paper cup inserted into its tray.

It had been a couple of days since dealing with the vigilante child that had turned up in the midst of the Dust shop thefts, and no other events had happened in the mean time. It might have seemed a little odd, but there had been varying lengths of time between the strikes, that ranged anywhere from one day to a week and a half. Trying to narrow down the woman of whom had been in the airship went nowhere. It was either that there was no one in the city that knew who she was, which could mean she was a criminal from out of Vale. Or it could just mean that anyone who would know was helping her, or dead. This new piece of information that she had gotten out of the teen had proven to be akin to gaining a leap forward, only to hit a brick wall.

Bubbling could be heard now, vibrations causing the figure of the machine to start to blur in the detective's sight. The woman blinked wearily, regretting spending her nights going through as many files and folders as she could before eventually dropping off to sleep when she couldn't fight the need any longer. Fingers rubbed one side of her right eye, trying to work away the urge to close her eyes, the dark blue patches under them a constant reminder of the hours she had spent reading in poor lighting.

"Rough morning?" A smooth voice called from behind her, the echoing clack of heels on the floor moving to one side of her. Tilting her head to see the person, although she had a pretty firm idea on who it was just by the voice. The black form fitting trench coat was the first thing she saw, the long flowing black hair slicked back around cat ears the next one. The smile on the woman's face was small, but there was definite amusement over how Weiss looked. She gave a small shrug to the answer.

"As rough as any other." Gurgling, the machine finally decided that the coffee was ready to dump into the detective's cup in spurts, gradually pumping it out until it reached less than inch from the rim. Steam rising from the cup, Weiss pulled it out, letting the other put in another styrofoam container. "How about you, Blake? That White Fang case going anywhere?" She took a sip, grateful for the hot drink that slipped down her throat and began pumping caffeine right into her blood stream.

"Not really, which I'm not sure I should be happy or worried about." The smile slipped away, the faunus becoming more pensive. There was a glimmer of thoughts showing through those gold eyes, the small streak of purple eye shadow above making them stand out. "It leaves two options for what happened. One, that it was an isolated incident and they've already left Beacon, or two, that they've simply gone underground for now."

They were, of course, talking about the faunus protest a few days ago that had gone bad thanks to some members of the White Fang, an aggressive and openly violent pro-faunus organisation, that had shown up with weapons. Luckily, no one had been killed in the conflict, but there had certainly been injuries, and the local faunus community was on edge for now. There was no telling if that would eventually grow into unrest, but the police were working hard to make sure it wouldn't get that far.

Machine spitting out more coffee, Weiss took another drink from her now rapidly cooling cup. She was expected to go walk a patrol today, which gave her a good excuse to get out of studying case files and trying to find any new links of information that she might have passed over during the five times, doubtful though that may be.

The conversation turned to other subjects for a time, as the pair of detectives both enjoyed their coffees in the relative peace of the morning. There were lapses of silence, but they were comfortable ones, that came from knowing each other since their days at the police academy. And when you knew someone for that long, there was never any discomfort in having nothing new to talk about. The time slipped by, and before they knew it, it was time to actually get to work.

"Alright, I'm off." Weiss dropped the now empty cup into a bin that she was passed on her way to the door. "Got to at least do something useful today, with nothing changing in the case." Even if she would most likely just wind up doing nothing more than moving along wannabe graffiti artists and other miscellaneous vandals.

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><p>Just as she thought, walking through her district proved to be just as boring as she had thought it would be. It was a decent neighbourhood, to be sure, so at most she just had to tell a few dumb kids with their pants sagging low as a form of some ridiculous fashion to clear off from an alleyway. Striding along, Weiss was almost to the point of mentally begging for something interesting to happen, for some brat to push their luck and try shoplifting something from a nearby store.<p>

Her eyes lit upon a small group of teenagers, all boys from what she could tell. There was something off about a group like that this early in the morning, and the way a couple of them were glancing about as they passed by a shop made it even more suspicious. The detective could only assume that they must be idiots if they were thinking to try something at this time of day. Plenty of people walking past that had the potential to be witnesses, and broad daylight to make it easier to get their faces on camera.

From the way they were shoving along one member, a straggly blonde, in the middle of the group though, the detective had to guess that it was some kind of hazing or bullying going on. She was bored, but was this really something she needed to involve herself in? There wasn't anything going on that she could reasonably say made her think the blonde was in danger if she decided to stop them. No, not with just the occasional shove to move the boy along. They would say that they were rough-housing and the blonde was fine with it.

Mentally sighing, Weiss turned her gaze elsewhere as she turned round a corner and onto a new street. Only to stop dead in her tracks at what she found.

A couple of men, sprawled on the ground and groaning next to the front steps of a shop. Maybe she would have felt alarmed and worried for their welfare, if she hadn't remembered their faces from a book of mug shots she had gone through when identifying some of the thugs in the Dust shops case. A thud echoed from inside the shop and the door crashed open, another man flying out with a yell to join the pair on the pavement, smacking face first into the sidewalk. Crossing her arms, Weiss waited for the person who had somehow thrown a grown man out of a shop to come out. She had an inkling on who it could be, but for that person's sake, she was hoping it wasn't the case.

A dark haired head poked out of the doorway, checking to see if any of the trio on the concrete was about to get up for more. Observing for a few moments with silver eyes, she smiled, satisfied that the attempted theft hadn't gone ahead. It had been sheer luck that Ruby had been in the shop when the three men had come in and attempted to hold up the elderly shopkeeper. After the incident and getting caught by the police, she had been trying to keep herself and Crescent Rose out of trouble, but she couldn't help it if the trouble came to her, could she? And she couldn't just let them rob the shopkeeper either.

"You okay?" She turned halfway around to call back to the shopkeeper, concern on her face now the danger was over, letting her scythe fold back into the rectangular shape it took when not needed. After hearing a confirmation that he was fine, Ruby relaxed, looking back out onto the street once more, this time noticing that her actions had not gone unnoticed. In fact, she realised with her eyes widening and mouth opening, she had been seen by one of the worst people who could have been there at this time. "Ohhh snap." She murmured to herself, already anticipating the yelling.

"You." Weiss began, anger already slipping into her voice. She had wanted some interruption to the boredom of the patrol, but not this. Not to have the stupid little vigilante off getting into harm's way and causing trouble. "Are in so much trouble now." She began pacing towards the teenager, whose gaze was darting between the officer and the other end of the street, as if debating in her head whether she should stay or try to make a run for it.

"Did you learn nothing from last time? Not after being dragged into the police station for interfering in a case?" By now, she was in front of the cringing teenager, getting ready to chew her out thoroughly. "Shouldn't you be in school and not out chasing down thugs?"

"...It's Saturday. There is no school on." Ruby answered in confusion, wondering if that was a trick question. The detective blinked once, briefly wondering why her sense of time had warped her into thinking that it was Tuesday.

"Either way, you've already been warned by the police to stop!" She continued on, choosing to act as if the mistake had never happened. "Do you want me to take you back to the station, and throw you into a holding cell until your family comes to get you? Because I'm damn tempted to do so right now." It might have been a cold threat to make, but it was worth it if she could scare the girl off from throwing herself in harm's way again. And it seemed to be working from the way Ruby's face paled, her mouth opening as she prepared to plead against that idea.

"Ahem."

Weiss hadn't been aware that someone else had been watching, and she certainly had not been expecting anyone who had been to actually interrupt her. She peered over her shoulder, catching sight of an unruly mop of silver hair perched on top of a man's head. Turning around, she could also tell that his outfit was made out of varying shades of green, with it starting off a light shade with his scarf, before deepening with his vest and jacket, and even more so with his dress pants. The only thing that didn't seem to be green was a pair of odd spectacles perched on his nose.

The first idea about him that sprang to mind at his appearance, at least for Weiss, was that he was a teacher of some sort. Maybe even one that had a position at whatever high school Ruby must go to, and was intervening to help one of his students. Well, he would have another thing coming if he thought he could just help her get out of this without punishment.

"And just who are you... sir?" Weiss tacked on, figuring it unwise to be outright rude to the man before she definitely knew who he was. Her forced tone made it clear her displeasure however, drawing an amused smirk from him as he came closer.

"Oh, just someone interested in the situation here." He answered, words warm and jovial despite the hostility radiating off the detective. "And also, the chief of police for Beacon." There was no pause after he had finished before Weiss scoffed out loud, caught between wanting to laugh or rage at the man.

"Oh really? Then I would assume that you would have some form of badge saying so?" She had turned haughty now, assuming that it would be only a minute to get rid of him. Instead of the bluffing the detective had expected from him however, he instead calmly reached into the inside of his jacket and fished around, drawing out a wallet moments after.

"I trust this would be enough?" Flicking it open with his thumb, a large golden badge of office was revealed. Weiss recognised the design and motto of the Beacon police on it, plus a few variants that distinguished this copy. Ones that they had been taught back in training to recognise as signs of ranks.

She sputtered wordlessly to herself. He had been telling the truth! Ruby, unsure of what was going on, had not moved from her spot, instead opting to glance between the both of them with her eyebrows raised. The chief of police gave her a calm smile, before turning back to face the detective, no signs of feeling insulted by the assumption his subordinate had made of him on his face as he kept up the serene expression that he had appeared with.

"And now, I think we need to have a little talk."

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><p><strong>Hope you like the chapter! If you did, please consider leaving a review.<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

A foul mood pervaded the space around Weiss as she stomped through the police station to her desk, people scattering ahead of her in order to stay out of her way and avoid any accidental wrath. Every movement she made, from slapping down a short stack of papers onto the desk, to dropping down into her seat with a scowl on her face, was punctuated with a note of anger. It felt like there was a thundercloud brewing above the detective's head, unseen but sending out electricity into the air around her nonetheless. None dared to enter her vicinity due to this aura, even if there was a buzz of curiosity in the murmurs among the other officers in the room. The heiress was known to be grumpy and frigid normally, that was for sure, but this was a rare mood to see her in, almost as rare as catching her smiling.

"What happened to you?" Weiss peered over her shoulder at the black haired faunus who had approached her. Unlike the others, Blake was one of the few who had the privilege of being allowed to talk to the detective without the fear of getting a cold shoulder in return. "You didn't seem this grumpy when you left this morning for your patrol." The other girl sent the detective a quizzical glance, her cat tail curling in the air behind her. "Did something happen?"

"The new chief of police happened." The silver haired woman grumbled as she wrote something in pencil on one of her papers. They had been expecting a change in their boss for a while now, since the current one had announced he was retiring. What they had been expecting though was to meet the new one through some press meeting, not by running into him on the street and having him interfere in disciplining some teenager vigilante. "I met him while I was out on my patrol."

"Oh?" One of Blake's cat ears flicked back before returning to its usual position. "I'd heard he'd arrived today, but I didn't think anyone would get to meet him before the press conference scheduled this afternoon." A hand rose up to curl a finger around her chin in thought. "I'm guessing from the change in attitude, that he's going to be causing some serious changes around here." From experience, that was what normally affected Weiss's mood the most, having things that she had gotten used to changed around on her.

"Urgh." The detective dropping her head down to lie face first on her files pretty much confirmed that idea. "It's completely ridiculous! I meet him on the street while taking care of a crime, and it takes him less than five minutes to decide upon some completely stupid program to be adopted almost immediately, in order to start drumming up more enrolments into the police academy."

The amount of recent enrolments in the last few years to the Beacon Police Academy had been some small amount of worry to the higher ups, people knew. While there was a decent sized amount of the population that knew how to use weapons, including highly specialized, combined, or customised ones, in the last decade, the amount of people with those kinds of skills were increasingly choosing to either join the military, or to simply fold into normal lives and jobs while using their knowledge to simply defend themselves and their families from crime. It was unsure of if there was a growing amount going into organised crime, but no one had been able to find any proof of that yet.

While they were fine so far with how many new officers were trained and then turned out into the local law and order department, or into neighbouring areas, it was projected that if the figures kept dropping like they were, then in another decade or so, they would be scrambling to keep everywhere patrolled and safe from crime with how many officers they would have on staff. And from there would come more crime, people choosing to move elsewhere where they could be protected, and nearly the whole of Beacon basically taking a massive hit in their standards of life.

How to tackle this problem before it actually became an issue, had been something their superiors had been scrambling around for an answer to. Maybe the idea that Ozpin had told her and Ruby about might be the reason he had been promoted to the position.

"He plans on calling it 'work experience.' Like that makes it sound any better." Weiss explained for Blake, almost stabbing the paper with the pressure that she was using to put pencil to paper. "It's completely idiotic! The notion that it's a smart idea to let teenagers tag along with a detective for a month!"

"What?" That caught Blake's attention, taken aback momentarily before retrieving her cool and thinking it over. "...Well, I suppose it would be a decent way to give them a chance to get interested in joining the police force, but it also seems sort of dangerous." Despite the fact that there were quite a good percentage of teenagers that could probably take care of themselves in case of danger, what with the amount of them that had some kind of combination weapon on them and the skill to use them.

"That's what I told him." Throwing a finished paper into a folder, Weiss started on another.

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><p><em>"That's why I want to do a trial run first." Ozpin coolly replied when the detective blew up at the notion. They were still out in front of the shop, after a cruiser had come to pick up the unconscious men that Ruby had knocked out, the girl herself wringing her hands nervously as she waited near the red-faced Weiss. "One pair at least, three at most. If it goes successfully, maybe a few more pairs."<em>

_"And just what detectives do you think will actually want to volunteer for this?" Indignant, Weiss crossed her arms as she spoke, already disliking her new chief immensely from this first meeting alone. Gods, how could such a man be promoted to be the boss of an entire city's force? "There is basically no one worth their rank that would want to sign up for babysitting a child while also doing their normal duties." Not that she personally knew, it was just that the idea seemed too far gone for anyone of reasonable mind to want extra work piled on their plate._

_"Hmm." He seemed almost amused by the statement, smiling in response. "I'm afraid, that this won't be run on a volunteer basis, Miss Schnee." Her bristling at the use of her last name did not go unnoticed, though Ozpin chose not to make any comment about it. "I will be selecting people for it. Such as you."_

_Not comprehending at first, the silver haired woman blinked as her brain processed the line. The moment of realisation came._

_"...You cannot be serious." She waited for the exclamation that it was a joke to come, but it appeared that none was coming when the chief continued on smiling. Or worse, that Weiss herself was the punch line. "What makes you think that I would even agree to this?"_

_"What makes you think you have a choice? If I say it's to be a part of your work, then it will be." Ozpin rolled his head back, relieving some tension from the muscles in his neck as he continued to talk. "Besides, I barely think that putting up with having a teenager to order around for a couple of months would be that much a hassle, if all goes well."_

_"Maybe you see it that way, but I'm in charge of the Dust shop robberies case. Tackling that with a kid in tow just screams trouble to me." Though she had to admit, the idea of being able to treat them like an assistant was tempting. Perhaps it could be why she had become a little less loud in her rebuffing of the program and her inclusion into it. "If anything, it will be a giant distraction from my work, and I can't afford to fall back on that, not when we're not getting any closer to stopping the culprits."_

_"Of course, they won't be around the entire time." Ozpin confirmed that much. "Mostly afternoons and weekends. That should be an acceptable amount of time for both you and miss... Ruby Rose, I presume." The acknowledgement that he knew who she was made Ruby's head jerk to attention. The detective on the other hand, was doing another double take as what he meant this time took only a second to sink in._

_"What."_

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><p>"...Well, at least you don't have to spend the entirety of your job with the kid tagging along." Blake tried to reassure Weiss as the detective sunk her head down onto her work once more. "And you only have to put up with it for a couple of months at most, maybe even less if the city learns and decides to scrap it completely." Her tail twitched behind her as a thought struck the faunus, raising a curled hand to her chin as she looked off to the side. "Wouldn't he also need to get permission from her parents or guardians, given that she's only fifteen?"<p>

The mention of a way that her working with a teenage vigilante could get shot down brought life to the sullen detective, pushing herself up from her work. Yes, yes that would be the case. They couldn't just have Ruby tagging along with any of them if her parents decided to veto the idea. And while she could question their credentials as guardians given that the girl had been able to carry out beating up thugs for around a month before she got caught by the police, surely any sane adult wouldn't willingly let their daughter go out and follow a detective around, not with the knowledge that she would almost surely be around crime scenes and potential fights.

"I think you're right." A smirk twitched on her lips as she straightened up, a sense of smug satisfaction washing over Weiss as she brought the pencil down upon a page, lightly brushing the lead tip across the surface this time. "Unless her parents are the least competent ones in the world, they'd probably reject the notion outright! There's no way that it will go ahead once he reaches that part."

Yes, that had to be the case. The thought alone kept on assuring her as the detective focused on the work in front of her. And when Friday would roll around, the afternoon on which Ozpin had said that they would first work together on, there would be no Ruby Rose waiting for her.

* * *

><p><em>Inhale. Exhale. Don't let the anger show. Not yet anyways.<em>

This was what Weiss kept on repeating to herself while staring at the fifteen year old girl squirming in the seat before her in the reception area of the station. During the silence that reigned between them (other than the echoing sounds of typing coming from the receptionist nearby), Ruby would glance up to meet the icy stare, before looking away swiftly, almost imperceptibly shrinking further into the chair.

A call had come through the intercom less than ten minutes earlier, telling the woman that there was a 'visitor' waiting for her. Confusion had followed as she strode away from her desk to see who it could be. There was no one outside of work that she knew would need to come and visit her instead of calling her phone. Her father, maybe, but he was out of the city on business, she knew that much.

"I wasn't expecting you to actually show up." Weiss finally spoke, breaking the tension with the truth of what she had thought this meeting would turn out to be. "I never thought that you would have guardians stupid enough to agree to let you do this." The wannabe crime fighter could have been jumping at this chance to actually have a legit way to help out, the detective didn't know, but surely her parents would think otherwise. Or so she had thought.

"It actually turned out later that he and my uncle Qrow knew each other." It was a hesitant reply, Ruby almost sure that the woman was going to erupt again soon despite the calm to how she was approaching this. "I didn't think he'd actually agree to this either, but after that, he pretty much okayed it right away. Took him a while to get through the mound of paperwork that came with the agreement though." The girl was showing plenty of signs of being nervous, but Weiss could read enough about the way that she fidgeted with her feet, and bit on her bottom lip, that she was also viewing this experience with anticipation.

Weiss blew a breath out her nose. Great, so this stupid program was going ahead. Just when she was due to head out on another patrol again. She could simply send the teenager home and complain to the chief again about pushing her into this idea of his, but she had a feeling that would just land her the enviable position of being chained to her desk by paperwork until she gave in.

Maybe her best hope was to bore Ruby with having to go on patrols to the quieter areas of the city, and helping out the detective with filing and sorting paperwork. If her aim with her bouts of vigilantism had simply been a way to find some excitement for her life instead of a love for justice like most of them claimed, then surely she would be quitting from it after a couple of weeks. Leaving Weiss to get back to real work instead of babysitting.

"Might as well do this then." Tapping one foot idly, the woman came to a decision, giving a small nod to herself. So long as she kept Ruby away from any actually interesting parts to police work, they would be done with this within the month. "I was about to head out on patrol, guess you'll have to join me." Walking away, she didn't look back to make sure that the girl was following after as the detective strode to the front door, the bullet-proof glass doors sliding silently apart for her. A glance back showed her that Ruby was paused by hesitation.

"...What are you doing? Either you're coming or you're not." Snapping out of it at the slight threat to end the 'work experience' right then and there, Ruby rushed to her feet, half stumbling at one point as she sought to catch up to Weiss, who had exited the building and was heading to a cruiser parked nearby.

Another breath blew out the woman's nose. This was going to be a long day.


End file.
